"STRATFORD EVENING POST" WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 15, 1924. THE PORT OF NEW PLYMOUTH.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXXIII, Issue 68, 15 September 1924, Page 4

"STRATFORD EVENING POST" WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 15, 1924. THE PORT OF NEW PLYMOUTH.

There has been some difference of opinion regarding the best means of providing the additional berthage thai 'is very urgently required at New Plymouth, if the Port of Taranaki is to maintain the direct shipping services which have grown up of late years. The last meeting of the Harbor Board, however, came to certain deliuite conclusions which provide that the old wharf shall be kept iu a serviceable state of repair

at a minimum of cost, and that dredging on the eastern side of the , new wharf is to be pushed on with all speed in order to provide an additional berth for vessels of moderate size, while a wind-screen is to he erected on the wharf to protect vessels lying there. The question of ■widening the new wharf has been deferred, and as soon as the present work on it is completed, the shipping of the port will use it mostly and the old wharf only when require,] by a congestion of arrivals. Plans are to be prepared for an entirely new wharf to replace this old structure, and immediately the loan nowasked for is available its construction will be proceeded with in ferroconcrete, the dimensions being 1300 feet in length by 180 feet in width, with, of course, the requisite sheds .an ( i equipment for the up-to-date handling of cargo. The Taranaki Herald states that it is proposed to carry out the work by contract, provided lenders received are not greatly in i .-cess of the estimated cost. This decision will, it is believed, meet with very general approval and go a long way towards (ensuring the carrying of the loan proposals when they are placed before ratepayers. The board's engineer is confident that the new wharf can be carried far enough to accommodate an overseas steamer before it will be necessary to interfere with the ,present .overseas ''berth. Th' t is is very important, since it means that from now on—or at least from the time, now very near at hand, when the Newton jKing wharf is ,|availrible for an overseas steamer—there will be accommodation for two such steamers, and most of the delay which has been so irksome during the last year or two will he avoided. One of the chief difficulties the board has had to deal with was to provide at once a second deep-water berth and to plan its improvement scheme so that it would not be necessary to depend upon a single berth even for a short time during (he process of new wharf construction. This might have been done by spending £20,000 on the old wharf to make it safe while the Newton King wharf was doubled in width, but this plan involved very extensive and difficult dredging eastward of the new wharf before the extension could be undertaken. It is estimated that if carried out by contract the new Moturoa wharf can 'probably be completed in three years from now, allowing about a year for the pieliminary work and two years for the actual construction, and then the board will have accommodation for three or four large steamers, while under the alternative plan of doubling the width of the Newton King- wharf it was likely to be five years before more than two large steamers could be accommodated. The present proposals appear to have been very carefully considered, and appear on right lines with due regard to present and future requirements.